Back to topic. I dislike in high sec systems illegal missions are brazenly on the mission board. It's a bit like going to the noticeboard in Tesco's and it saying "wanted" hitman to take care of meddling wife.. or delivery driver needed to deliver 2 kilos of heroin. Good prices paid .
To me these missions should only be on open markets in anarchy space OR via a shady contact in high sec, one we only get access to when we have built up a certain rep with the right people.
Personally, the fact that outright illegal contracts, which are
never sting operations, are displayed openly on Pilots' Federation maintained contract boards is one of the reasons for my headcanon that the Pilots' Federation has become a cancer within the 34th century human society in the Elite Universe. That, and the fact that I consider BGS play fairly sociopathic when viewed from the point of view of an ordinary person in the Elite Universe. The crime and punishment system (administered by the Pilots Federation, BTW) makes it trivial for Pilots Federation members to operate
above the law. Throw Powerplay into the mix, and you've got situation where the Pilots' Federation seens to be actively throwing fuel onto a smoldering file to an effort to set it ablaze.
The Elite Universe has always come across as fairly cyberpunk-ish IMO. Between corporate towns the size of entire systems, the major Powers permitting legal (but highly-regulated) debt-slavery on the one hand, and protecting de-facto debt-slavery on the other hand, and chattel-slavery being a common practice in independent Human Space, life isn't very pretty for a large proportion of Humanity, especially those who don't have the privilege of living on a habitable or terraformed world.
While I'm sure it was unintentional, many of Frontier's design decisions in this game, especially those that catered to the Veruca Salts of the community, have transformed the players from being minor pawns at the mercy of the bigger Powers around them, into
the major Power in our own right, who can make even the mighty Federation and Empire dance to our tune. A single player can shape the fate of an entire star system. A small group of players can alter the fate of many, and Powerplay is
designed to manipulate the fate of the Superpowers themselves.
When I designed my main character, I intended her to be a villain in the eyes of the Federation, an ex-Imperial Slave turned Agent of the Empire! who actively worked against Federation interests. Little did I know back in 2012, that by the time the game would go live, exactly
how much villainy being a member the Pilots Federation actually enabled.